Howard University To Integrate More Black Americans Into the Military Industrial Complex.
Howard University in Washington D.C. has been awarded a five-year, $90 million contract by the US Department of Defense and the US Air Force to fund a research center dedicated to developing advanced technology for the military.
The center will be one of the Pentagon’s 15 officially designated UARCs (University Affiliated Research Centers) and the first to be based at a historically black college/university (HBCU), a dubious “honor” that was announced with great fanfare on January 23 by university President Wayne A.I. Frederick.
Of course, the academic perspective tries to invoke diversity:
Howard’s partnership with the most reactionary and bloodstained institution on the planet is presented as a progressive advance for “people of color.” Speaking to The Dig, Howard Professor Bruce Jones explained, “There is a dearth of people of color going into these areas of tactical autonomy, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cyber security… This [contract] enables Howard University to provide a pipeline of students and faculty into these strategic areas. In securing this UARC, Howard acts as a model for other HBCUs to do the same.”
There are 14 other universities with Pentagon-funded UARCs, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Austin and Johns Hopkins University. While Howard is the first HBCU to be awarded this “prestigious” program, this is merely the latest step in the integration of HBCUs into the military-intelligence apparatus, part of the broader militarization of American higher education.
So while certain states battle to remove CRT and DEI from higher education, politicians at large ignore the more real and dangerous indoctrination: that into the Military Industrial Complex.
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